Feminist. Opinion Slinger. Occasionally an Arse.

Tag Archives: angry things

If somebody offered me tax immunity, I would laugh in their face and then skip away. My tax does not feed a bloated monarch (well, most of it). It lets someone who is out of work and breaks their leg get it properly set. One day, it will keep me fed and well as my skin loosens and my bones start to crumble.

On Radio 2 the other day, the mythical “person who needs no governmental assistance” was being discussed. This person, it was theorised, should not have to pay national insurance. They had been to a private school, had private healthcare and payed into a private pension. They would never lose their job, or if they did then they had savings. Their children were also privately educated. They would still pay road tax because they used roads, of course.

Not only does this person not exist, but even if they did, they would still have to pay tax, because tax is not a system where you put in coins and get roads and hospitals. It is also the means by which we redistribute the wealth that floats to the top of the pool. It’s stirring the tea of life so that the sugar doesn’t settle to the bottom. Your tax pays for libraries that you don’t use because it is supposed to. It pays for children you do not have because it is supposed to.

But if that isn’t enough to convince someone, remind them that when they are old and inflation has rendered their private pension worthless, those children that they have paid for will be paying for them.

Oh, and if they complain about “benefit scroungers”, frame them for a fireable offence and steal all their savings. Then they will have to apply for jobseekers and will perhaps finally understand what bollocks they’ve been talking all along.